Canada: The future looks grim after two years of devastating B.C. wildfires
By Bethany Lindsay
For decades, scientists have predicted that B.C. would experience longer, more intense wildfire seasons as the climate warms. But the destruction of the last two years is still a bit surprising.
According to Chilliwack fire ecologist Robert Gray, the scale of the wildfire emergencies we've lived through in 2017 and 2018 wasn't expected for decades.
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In all, more than 12,000 square kilometres of B.C. landscape went up in flames last year, making it the worst wildfire season on record.
Any hope that was an anomaly has been blown away during the 2018 season, which is now the second worst on record. By Monday morning, more than 9,640 square kilometres of the province had burned — a total that will only climb in the days ahead.
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There's been a lack of both controlled and traditional First Nations burning in recent decades, which has left much of the province dense with potential wildfire fuels. There's the fact that we've aggressively fought most fires, rather than letting them run their natural course.
But a change in weather patterns has pushed things over the edge, according to Mike Flannigan, a professor of wildland fire at the University of Alberta.
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For the last two years, the hot and dry weather that has allowed so many large fires to develop in B.C. has been driven by a blocking ridge of high pressure that's been stuck over the province for much of the summer.
The air beneath that ridge sinks, warms and dries, creating perfect conditions for a "raging inferno" if it sticks around for a week or more, according to Flannigan.
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